Economics Courses

Are we doomed? Economics course in CityLit running for 12 weeks, starting Wednesday 19 September, 10 to 12 noon. It’s all about the economic crisis. The causes will be revealed: consumer societies drowning in debt, blinkered economists, an unviable fractional reserve banking system, greed and corruption. The consequences will be examined, misery and the “1%”. And we will confront various theories to discern which one promises plausibly to pull us out of the doldrums. Absolutely no prior knowledge of economics required (but the course is a good introduction to the whole subject). Do enrol. We owe it to ourselves, as voters and taxpayers, to consider what’s happening in our economy.

Two other related courses, at the Mary Ward Centre, Literature & Economics, and History of Economic Thought.

Course: History of Economic Thought

Everyone seems to be talking about the economy these days. But do they always make sense? Politicians, pundits, and business leaders, sound like they have lost the map. In a new course I will be teaching at the Mary Ward Centre this term  we will question the great thinkers of the past, from Aristotle to the Enlightenment, from the Bible and Islam to the modern economic theories of Liberalism, Socialism, and Keynesianism, and we will try to shed some light on perennial problems: What is money? Is charging interest moral? When is a price fair, and are price controls always detrimental? How much social inequality is tolerable? On these and other burning questions let’s find out what philosophers have to teach us. After all, it concerns us all, as workers, consumers, savers and citizens.

Christian

Course at Mary Ward Centre

An interdisciplinary course, On Poverty, at the Mary Ward Centre, drawing on philosophy and economics will start in the new year.

The course will be looking at diverse perceptions of poverty: a curse in the Torah; a liberating condition in Stoicism, Christianity and Buddhism; a condition to be eradicated in modern economics... Themes opened for discussions will range from women and poverty, Michel Foucaults Great Confinement, Marx and the pauperisation of the proletariat, the deserving poor; and will go on to the reversal operated by the Welfare State, when poverty was deemed to grant rights, rather than wealth to create duties. We will be calling, of course, on the recent works by Peter Singer, Martha Nussbaum, Amartya Sen, and the authors around the CARE movement.

The course is open to all; it will run every Wednesday, 4 to 6pm, starting on 12 January, for 11 meetings. No prior knowledge of economics or philosophy is required. A friendly, illuminating and topical course is guaranteed.

History of Economic Thought: Plato



Plato

 Being a complete novice at economics, I went to the course of the History of Economic Thought at Mary Ward Centre with great curiosity.  In the first lesson of economics, I was delighted to learn something about ancient Greek society and the rise of Greek philosophers.  Ignorant as I am in philosophy as in economics, I had only heard of Plato in the context of Platonic Love.  Never had I had the faintest idea that Plato was also the forefather of Communism!  In the 4th century BC, he exposed three main evils of an imperfect society: inequality, greed and ignorance and attributed the roots of all evils to ruthless profit-making and exploitation.

To be serious, Plato was not a communist.  The difference between Plato and Marxism lies in their theories of social divisions. Marxists advocate a society ruled by Proletarians as in their slogan: “Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.” Whereas Proletarians/Producers/the working class in Plato’s ideal “city” would be placed in the lowest strata of the society.  Plato’s ideal was a society ruled by Priests and Philosophers – the thinkers, not by Producers/the working class.

Let’s be honest, can the working class really rule the world without the “intellectual guidance” from “Priests and Philosophers”? I wonder if anybody still remembers George Orwell’s Animal Farm, in which Squealer – the intellectual pig, run the whole show of the Farm with his glib tongue.  The egalitarian slogan of the communist farm reads:

“ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL.  BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.”

Related topic:
History of Economic Thought

Course: History of Economic Thought

There will be a course on the History of Economic Thought, at the Mary Ward Centre.  It will run every Wednesday, 4 to 6pm, for 11 weeks from the 22nd September. Economic activity has profoundly transformed all societies in unpredictable ways, at different paces and in different directions. From the economics of the Indian caste system, of Taoism and Islam, the early socialist spirit of the Bible, on to mercantilism and the many socialisms, the theories of economic growth and the present debate between Keynesian and Austrian schools, the course will examine how human beings strove to improve their productive powers throughout history and what kind of social cooperation emerged from their economic activities. It will be philosophical, enlightening and fun. (Tutor: Christian Michel.)